The Russellville School Board passed two noteworthy items at its meeting Tuesday— one that creates a job and another that will reduce jobs elsewhere in the school district.

The school board approved a motion to create a communications specialist position within the district, that will oversee the district’s social media accounts and its websites, among other things.

The position reflects the growing trend of hiring district-wide communications specialists, one that superintendent Randall Williams has seen grow throughout the state.

“We saw the increasing need for communications, both in-district and out-of-district,” Williams said. “The rise of the use of social media, and the handling of all our websites, all those types of things caused us to realize that there was no one person in our district that can handle that for a district this size.”

Now that the district has created the position, the action will be sent to the Personnel Policies Committee to be reviewed, as part of the standard procedure for creating new positions.

He said the district will begin advertising and taking applications for the job. Williams did not disclose what the expected salary of the position would be, but said it would depend on experience and qualifications.

The school board also approved the intent to reduce five jobs from the district’s culinary services department, following a 25-minute presentation from the Southwestern Foods Service — a food service consultant the district hired earlier this year — on different ways they could reduce spending in school cafeterias.

The consultants said the district was overstaffed by five positions.

Currently, approximately 60 employees work in school cafeterias throughout the district.

The five positions have not been cut yet, as a committee consisting of Williams, both assistant superintendents, two building principals, and the classified personnel policy committee will meet and consider the reduction in force.

“We’ve entered into a procedure here, basically, is what it means,” Williams said.

The workforce reduction is one of several recommendations Southwestern Food Services made to the board which, altogether, total a potential savings of nearly $400,000 per year in the district’s culinary services department. Nearly half of that savings comes from improved efficiency in food preparation, in addition to reducing employees and eliminating employees eating for free in the cafeteria.

“Using the food service professionals as consultants, if we’re able to successfully do everything they recommended, it would result in a significant savings to the district and make our investment in the consultants very worthwhile,” Williams said. “If we can free up this money, we can use it to invest in other programs throughout our schools.”